Wednesday, January 10, 2007

John Lewis invites your questions.

Awhile back, I linked to John Lewis's "No Substitute for Victory" and got some very interesting reader comments. I am not the only one who thinks it would be a good idea to send some of these to The Objective Standard. "I would encourage readers to write to TOS with their questions; the more I can get, the better I can respond in the next issue," says Dr. Lewis in a comment he left last night at that post.

Lewis has already posted a preliminary reply to some reader criticism here, which I would recommend reading before writing him. (To do so, follow the link above.)

In addition, Burgess Laughlin made a very good connection as a result of Lewis's work. His LTE reads, in part:

One shouldn't be surprised that an entity's actions follow from the entity's nature. As a political entity, the USA is a welfare state. ...

Just as the welfare bureaucracy of the USA endlessly drains the resources of productive citizens, all in the name of altruism, so the "War on Terrorism" is endlessly draining the resources (and lives) of the USA, all in the name of altruism.

Excellent point. I would add further that John Lewis has helped me enormously to clarify my own thinking about this war. For that, he has my gratitude.

Bruno is back!

Fellow fans of The Simplest Thing will be happy to hear that Bruno has resumed blogging, but at a new blog. He hasn't said much so far, but you can now find him at Uncompromising Individualist on my blogroll.

Jefferson Read the Koran

Meryl Yourish points to an interesting post about the Koran Keith Ellison chose to swear into Congress with. It turns out that Ellison used the very book Thomas Jefferson studied to gain insight into the motivation of the Barbary Pirates! Anne Lieberman ends by saying, "[T]he joke's on Ellison: by using Jefferson's Koran, he's pointing out exactly why he shouldn't. The problem is, no one will ever know."

Close, but no cigar. So long as we remember something else about Jefferson -- that he was unconcerned about what his neighbor believed since that neither picked his pocket nor broke his leg. More to the point: Ellison is swearing to uphold the law of the land, not the law of the Koran. If he breaks his oath, we remove him from office. There is nothing magical about taking an oath on a Koran (or a Bible for that matter).